


Afterlife

by Pidonyx



Series: I Can Thrill You More than Any Ghost Would Ever Try [2]
Category: Overwatch (Video Game)
Genre: Buckle up folks, F/F, Temporary Character Death, Witch Angela "Mercy" Ziegler, because I can't keep my grubby little hands to myself, btw this is Pretty Bad imo but I realllllly wanted to do smth for Halloween so here we go again, halloween fic, halloween terror, im sorry I keep doing this to you Fareeha I love u, its also set in the universe of Junkenstein's Revenge, kinda angst?, possessed pharah
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-10-15
Updated: 2017-10-15
Packaged: 2019-01-17 23:20:38
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,368
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12376233
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Pidonyx/pseuds/Pidonyx
Summary: Witches don't die that easily.But mortals do.





	Afterlife

**Author's Note:**

> Heyyyyyy guys I'm back, doing the exact same thing as always because What Else Is New.  
> Jk, I have other, different things in the works, but this is kinda just a Halloween reskin of my Favorite Plot Point in the World Apparently. So. I hope you like spooks and suffering.
> 
> This was beta'd by me and again by my editor, and though it's not as up to par as I'd like it to be I'm tired of looking at it (like I say every time) so here you all go, enjoy. Please let me know if you notice any grammatical mistakes, if you have comments, questions, etcetera. 
> 
> By now you all know the drill, the title is from "Afterlife" by Ingrid Michaelson. 
> 
> Happy Halloween.

The witch's fingers pressed into the embossed letters of the book's page, shaking slightly. Where normally her fingertips would gently glide over creamy parchment and golden ink, now they pushed with enough force to tear with too sudden a movement. Her mouth moved silently, reciting the words on the page in front of her, over and over.

She shouldn't have fallen for the alchemist's daughter. She shouldn't. All logic and sensibility went against it. Then again, when had a heart ever operated on logic?

She had been so lovely, too. So beautiful. So kind. So brave. The witch knew better than anyone that she didn't deserve anyone's care or kindness. The fact that she had received it anyways was a heady enough feeling that she kept coming back.

The chance meeting in the forest outside Adlersbrunn had been just that: chance. But everything that had come afterwards? That had been a choice. That had become infinitely more clear each time -- as the initial novelty of humanity had worn off and the witch was forced to wonder what kept her seeking the other out. Her answer had come to her one evening in the forest, like the lightning she could so easily hold in and make fly from her palms.

In the present, the witch sighed a shaky breath, the chill in the newly-October air turning it to billowing clouds of pale steam, and hunched even further over her spellbook, mouth moving again, actually muttering the words written across the page.

From that point, it had been a matter of time. Either she would find out, or the witch would tell her, and then she would leave. The only question was how long it would be. The answer turned out to be a few weeks -- but she didn't leave. She offered a blinding smile, and she stayed.

The witch didn't realize how much she was shaking until a frosty droplet hit the page right above the tip of her index finger. She pressed her lips together, just for a moment, composing herself. The safeguards weren't working; she was accomplished enough at magic -- tugging the strings of the natural world, adjusting this, changing that, snipping those -- to know when nothing was happening, when it wasn't flowing. The implications of that made her blood run colder than any magic could.

That meant that she needed to _run_. The witch swept to her feet -- stumbling, a rare thing for her indeed -- hooking the leather strap around her waist through the heavy iron ring on her book, raising a hand and snatching her broomstick out of the air as it soared towards her. The dead, grey leaves shuddered and crackled under her feet and chattered like teeth in the skeletal trees. An omen. She scattered them in her wake as she darted from the clearing.

Nothing could last forever. That was a law of the universe. Whether the alchemist found out first, or the villagers figured it out on their own, they were found out. Of course.

Witch burnings were out of fashion, naturally -- they just didn't work. But that didn't mean that they couldn't do something immeasurably worse. A punishment for both parties. To atone for the terrible sin of associating with a witch.

The witch's heart thumped harder than she ever thought it would again. She was too late. She knew that. Yet she kept running, towards where the treeline parted into Adlersbrunn's center.

She exploded into the heart of the village with as much fanfare as she could manage in her current state, leaking magic all over the place, hoping to scare any remaining citizens out of her path. The effort proved futile; no one blocked her way. The little town seemed as good as deserted, with the ever-growing wind howling around dark gables, shadow spreading from the clustering clouds rumbling overhead. As good as deserted, save for a single figure slumped in the dead-center of the crescent of buildings.

Though she had expected nothing less, hoped for nothing more, the witch's heart plummeted. She crossed the distance between in two steps, slumping to her knees in the dusty street. The alchemist's daughter, throat split in a red smile from ear to ear, an occult-protection symbol burned directly into the flesh right over her heart -- visible through the tatters that used to be her shirt -- lay sprawled across the hardened dirt.

Her lips pressed together in an attempt to quell the tremble, the witch swept a streak into the grime coating her cheek with a thumb. No breath disturbed the dust motes swirling in front of her mouth and nose, no steady beat thumped against the leather of the witch's glove when she slid her palm against the symbol scarring her chest.

A pulsing, liquid compound of fury and overwhelming desolation rose in her throat, swam behind her eyes. She coiled her fingers into her hair, yanking at the roots, squeezing her eyes shut to try to burn the image scored into her retinas away. Her breath came short. She should have prevented this. She _should_ have stopped it before it even started.

She hadn't felt _anything_ like this, not in the six years following the downfall of Junkenstein's failed insurrection, and not during the nearly twenty before after her parents had passed. She hadn't wanted to experience the loss of another, the pain of destruction. She had wanted to avoid the very feeling she was experiencing right now: fresh, bleeding, suffocating.

And she would. The witch yanked the intricate book from its place resting on her hip, flipping open to a page of which she could count the number of times she had used on less than one hand. She placed her hands in the air over the battered chest of the alchemist's daughter, beginning to recite the words in her native dialect, the pronunciations flowing off her tongue smoother than those of her haunts of the past couple of decades.

As she spoke, golden light gathered in her hands, shining and bright, swirling around her cupped fingers and weaving through the open air between her palms. Slowly, it began to coalesce into a ball, as radiant as a miniature sun. The shimmer thrown from it flashed over the witch's features and illuminated the ugly dirt road she was crouched on into molten metal. The witch repeated the spell, words coming faster, falling from her lips in synch with the rapid pulsing of the soul matter hovering in her hands.

The light grew blinding, electricity arching between spread fingers, filling the clearing with a glare like full daylight. The witch, voice straining with the weight of the magic pooling on her tongue, flung the last words of the spell to the winds, raising her arms skyward and squeezing her eyes shut against the dazzling brightness.

The wind, which had been roaring at levels to challenge a tempest, seemed to still in a split second, replaced with a ringing silence and the witch's accelerated pulse in her ears. At another time she might have wondered how she still had one. But now was not that time.

The woman on the ground was stirring. She coughed, taking a deep, gasping breath. On the exhale, a stream of thick smoke curled from her lips, rising towards the dark clouds overhead like it was trying to join them. Her eyes opened, as white as the light that only a few seconds before had illuminated the clearing, and glowing softly as though lit from inside. Another breath sent a second plume of smoke skyward, and then she was trying to sit up.

Hastily, the witch pressed a hand to her collarbone, mindful of the burn over her heart, muttering a quiet "Just a minute, love, just breathe for a second."

Recognition smoothed the woman's features, and she nodded cautiously, easing herself back to the ground. Her hand came up to twine with the witch's, still resting feather-light over her chest.

The witch sighed in immeasurable relief, feeling it wash over her in such a comforting manner that tears sprung to her eyes, and she reached her free hand up to swipe them away. Thank gods.

For a few moments, all was still, just the witch and the alchemist's daughter, hands wrapped so tightly together the witch could feel the new, slow, quiet pulse gently beating against her palm.

Then, "I should've known better than to think that was the end. Not if I know you."

The quiet rasp jolted the witch out of her own thoughts, and she snapped her gaze guiltily to the other woman's face, surprised to see her smiling. The witch squeezed her hand tighter. "I'm sorry."

The other woman quirked a brow. "What for?"

The witch swallowed. "Meddling."

The burst of laughter was unexpected, but far from unwelcome, and the witch could feel a smile, unbidden, tugging at the corners of her mouth. _This_. This was the feeling that had coaxed her back to the forest each and every time. What had moved her hand to stop death from taking the alchemist's daughter away.

Something she'd sworn to never do again.

The guilt came rushing back and she cleared her throat harshly, looking off to the side to avoid the sharp gaze pointed her way.

"Angela."

The use of her name -- her real name. Not "Witch", not "the Witch of the Wilds" -- sent a shiver racing down her spine, and she jerked her head back to meet the other woman's steady stare.

"Angela. I know what you're thinking. I don't care. Alright? If anything, I'm glad I've been given a second chance at life. At you. Okay?"

Angela pressed her lips together. "But everything up to this point has been my fault, Reeha. I've done awful things. I've hurt people. And I've twisted myself so far up in playing god that I don't know where I stop and my magic begins. Fareeha, I've seen what it does to people -- to bring them back. I knew what it would do to you, and I still did it, I still --"

A soft hand brushing moisture off her cheek was when she realized she was crying again, and she looked up to see that Fareeha had pushed herself into a sitting position, and was leant forward, curled protectively towards her. Fareeha squeezed their clasped hands, her other threading into Angela's hair, palm resting against her jaw. "Listen," she said, voice low. "Listen to me. It's alright. I'm alright. You've made mistakes. So have I. But the fact that you care, that you care so much _right now_ shows that you've changed. You've changed, Angela. These people just couldn't see it." She waved a hand vaguely at the gabled houses around them.

She laughed softly. "And as to any side effects...if you don't care, I don't care." She punctuated it with one of her stunning smiles, more potent than any kind of magic.

Angela blinked. She opened her mouth, closed it, opened it again, hesitated, and then shuddered, reaching up with both hands and yanking Fareeha hungrily towards her. She could feel the other smile against her mouth before leaning into the kiss herself.

They moved together in tandem, blessed, perfect synchronization, and a couple more tears slipped out from under Angela's lashes. Truly, thank the gods for this woman.

When they broke apart, Angela looked up at her, eyes tracing the contours of Fareeha's face, searching for all the little differences and committing them to memory.

Fareeha pressed their foreheads together and for a moment it was just them, just them and the breeze gently toying with the edges of Angela's dress and the ends of Fareeha's hair.

Then Fareeha sighed and leant backwards ever so slightly. "Speaking of the townspeople, I have a distinct feeling they won't be happy I'm still walking around and breathing."

"Come with me," Angela responded immediately.

Fareeha smiled, though it was far more tired than the one before, worn around the edges. "Are you sure? It might be more dangerous for you to have me slowing you down."

Now it was Angela's turn to fix Fareeha with a steely stare. " _Fareeha Amari_. I'm not leaving you alone again. Why would I bring you back if I didn't want you with me?"

Fareeha's smile widened marginally. "Fair enough."

"Besides," Angela said matter-of-factly, getting to her feet and brushing dirt off of her skirt. "If anything I'll be in less danger, with the captain of the guard herself keeping me safe."

Fareeha snorted, pushing herself off the ground as well. "Alright then." She held out a hand to Angela, mouth tilting into a coy smile. "Shall we?"

Angela took the offered hand with a smile of her own, threading their fingers together again. "Nothing you want to take with you?"

"Not really. My armor, maybe."

"Done. Can you get it quickly?"

"Of course."

"I can get you into the castle. We can do that right away."

 Fareeha gave a single, concise nod, in full captain-mode, and made to start walking in the direction of the castle, but Angela stopped her with a tug on their linked hands. Fareeha glanced back, expectant.

Angela worried her lip with her teeth, hesitating. Fareeha regarded her patiently, facing Angela fully and tightening her grip. Angela squeezed back, taking a breath. "Are you sure? Are you sure you want to associate yourself with me? It's gotten you killed once before. I can't see that happen again."

Fareeha's expression grew serious, and she huffed a breath through her nose before using their clasped hands to pull Angela into a strong hug. "Of course. _Angela_.  Yes, I want to."

Angela buried her face in Fareeha's shoulder, saying nothing in response but not needing to. After a few moments, Angela stepped back, running a hand through her bangs. 

Fareeha squeezed her hand. "Ready?"

Angela nodded. Fareeha gave her a small smile and took a step forward.

"Fareeha."

Fareeha paused again, turning back towards Angela with a bemused expression on her face. Angela looked her straight in the eyes, serious, blue flashing with untapped magic as they so often did.

"I love you."

Fareeha's answering grin could have lit all of Adlersbrunn Castle.

"I love you too."


End file.
